Linda Ronstadt addresses 'worthless' border wall, why her new memoir is called 'Feels Like Home'

Linda Ronstadt's second memoir, "Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands," could just as easily have been a cookbook.

Her friend CC Goldwater, whose grandfather was politician Barry Goldwater, suggested the singer do a cookbook to raise money for research into Parkinson’s disease, which Ronstadt was diagnosed with in 2012.

"I said, 'I don't cook,' " says Ronstadt, 76, with a laugh. "She said 'Oh, it's OK.' "

A plan was hatched to gather recipes from the Goldwaters, the Ronstadts and family friend Bill Steen, who supplies the photographs in "Feels Like Home."

The book includes some family recipes, but over time, it morphed into a broader celebration of Ronstadt's Arizona roots.

It's a departure from her first memoir, "Simple Dreams," which focused more on Ronstadt's musical career.

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Ronstadt, who lives in San Francisco, spoke about the book (co-written with Lawrence Downes), how growing up in Tucson shaped who she is and the importance of family.

Q: Having read both memoirs, I like that they're such different books, despite covering some of the same territory. 

Answer: Well, "Simple Dreams" is about my musical process. This is slightly about that, because my childhood was part of my musical process. Indeed, it was inseparable. But I just wrote about a different thing.

Could you talk about the importance of sharing this side of your story – your Mexican-American heritage and life in the borderlands?

We're really dealing with three different cultures that have the same roots. There's Mexico. There's the United States. And there's Mexican-Americans. ... Mexican food has taken over. You can get a taco anywhere. A Sonoran (Desert) hot dog I don't think is so ubiquitous. But I eat them (laughs). I don't eat hot dogs and hamburgers. But a Sonoran hot dog is too good to pass up.

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You often hear of successful musicians coming from musical families, but it seems your family may have been more musical than most. 

In those days, mostly everyone played the piano. It was just a thing that happened with children. They got piano lessons and they practiced. There wasn't a radio. So you had to make your own music. And people did. It might not be really good. But I think everybody should have their own music they can play and sing. It's not going to be Paul Simon. But we have Paul Simon for that. And he does a good job.

Did you ever make it to Phoenix to perform before you moved to California as a teen?

We auditioned at some club, I can't remember what it was called. We did well and they offered us a job but my brother was going into the police department and he didn't think they would approve of it, him hanging around in a beatnik dive.

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I know it's a Randy Newman song that you've recorded more than once. But what appealed to you about "Feels Like Home" as a title?

It just seemed like a good way to sum up what the book was about. And I think family is important, the things your ancestors have been through.

How did growing up in in the borderlands, traveling to Mexico from Tucson, shape you?

We were driving through a landscape that was typical for me. I thought everybody had cactus in their backyard. But it turns out they didn't. I've always been proud of my heritage and where I came from. I love Tucson.

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Do you miss the desert?

Oh, yeah. Developers plowed up a lot of desert land and didn't put houses on it or bother to put any ground cover. So there's just dust clouds constantly. The last time I drove to Phoenix from Tucson, I was in a dust storm for two hours.

And that fence they built. That stupid fence, which doesn't keep people out because people fly in. It cuts scars in the desert and causes erosion. It empties the water table because they're using all the water to make concrete. And it prevents animals from migrating. They need to migrate to live.

An American rancher will buy 2,000 acres in Montana and build his house right in the middle so that he's completely isolated. Mexicans build their house in a village and they share the grasslands.

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You grew up crossing the border to visit family on your father's side. 

If you wanted to go farther south than Nogales, you had to have a permit, and the permit only lasted until such and such a date. So I would get the permit, go across and, coming back, it wasn't this incredibly long line of trucks where it takes hours to get through. You just showed your passport and you were there.

There was no point in putting up a fence. Some of those fences go right through ranchers' land. One of them goes straight through the Tohono O'odham reservation. It's preposterous. It cost a fortune. And it's worthless. And it's cruel. And they intensified the cruelty by separating families.

What do you think should be done about the situation on the border?

I think we should make it easier for them to work. They're not taking jobs away from Americans. They're doing jobs Americans won't do. They come up with a work visa, they earn money to send to their families, and then they go back. It couldn't be more ideal. More ideal would be paying them fairly, I suppose.

You write that much of the Tucson you knew in the '50s and '60s has been knocked down for blacktop and sprawl.

They destroyed a community to build (Tucson Convention Center), a so-called community center. And it was such a beautiful section. The buildings were adobe and right on the street. Now people pay big money to get a building like that, but it was for poor people. And after they tore it up, the two that were still available got rented to lawyers and money men. It's where rich people live now.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Linda Ronstadt talks 'Feels Like Home' book, 'worthless' border wall